Where Does The Name “Red Bank” Come From?

Here are Siam Garden, we feel blessed to do business in the community we do. When we set out to offer authentic Thai food in New Jersey, we knew we wanted a community that would embrace ethnic cuisine. Red Bank was that community. The people here are wonderful, our patrons are great, and we love working with our fellow business owners.

We don’t just love being in Red Bank for what it is today, either. Our town has a very interesting history – including how it got its name!

The history of the name “Red Bank” dates to before the American Revolution. The earliest known use was in 1736, when a plot of land was referred to as “a lot of over three acres on the west side of the highway that goes to the red bank” during a real estate transaction between Thomas Morford and Joseph French.

In other words, it was a simple description of the landscape.

The area now known as Red Bank was originally part of “Shrewsbury Towne,” and began to be built up in the mid 1800s. Through the middle decades of the 19th Century, blacksmiths, lumber yards and other industry contributed to growth in the area. The trains arrived in the 1860s, and Red Bank became a boom town – and that old description from 1736 stuck.

Finally, in 1908, Red Bank split from Shrewsbury and became a town of its own, still using the name attributed to it by Thomas Morford and Joseph French.

Well, maybe. The truth is, records from the early days of Red Bank are very sparse. The above explanation is really a best guess by local historians. We may never know the real truth of how Red Bank got its name. This story may be as close as we get!